Hours after rebuking what he dubbed the “Jezebel Spirit” at a men’s event over the weekend, Pastor Mark Driscoll was inv

'A Prophetic Voice': Mark Driscoll Returned to Men's Conference After Rebuking 'Jezebel Spirit' | CBN News

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The Odyssey: Book XI

The Odyssey: Book I

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . The Prophecy Realized here The Prophecy Realized Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. —Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races. —Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. Dawson’s Landing was comfortably finishing its season of dull repose and waiting patiently for the duel. Count Luigi was waiting, too; but not patiently, rumor said. Sunday came, and Luigi insisted on having his challenge conveyed. Wilson carried it. Judge Driscoll declined to fight with an assassin—“that is,” he added significantly, “in the field of honor.” Elsewhere, of course, he would be ready. Wilson tried to convince him that if he had been present himself when Angelo told about the homicide committed by Luigi, he would not have considered the act discreditable to Luigi; but the obstinate old man was not to be moved. Wilson went back to his principal and reported the failure of his mission. Luigi was incensed, and asked how it could be that the old gentleman, who was by no means dull-witted, held his trifling nephew’s evidence and inferences to be of more value than Wilson’s. But Wilson laughed, and said— “That is quite simple; that is easily explicable. I am not his doll—his baby—his infatuation: his nephew is. The Judge and his late wife never had any children. The Judge and his wife were past middle age when this treasure fell into their lap. One must make allowances for a parental instinct that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years. It is famished, it is crazed with hunger by that time, and will be entirely satisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied, it can’t tell mud-cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is measurably recognizable by them as a devil before long, but a devil adopted by an old couple is an angel to them, and remains so, through thick and thin. Tom is this old man’s angel; he is infatuated with him. Tom can persuade him into things which other people can’t—not all things; I don’t mean that, but a good many—particularly one class of things: the things that create or abolish personal partialities or prejudices in the old man’s mind. The old man liked both of you. Tom conceived a hatred for you. That was enough; it turned the old man around at once. The oldest and strongest friendship must go to the ground when one of these late-adopted darlings throws a brick at it.” “It’s a curious philosophy,” said Luigi. “It ain’t a philosophy at all—it’s a fact. And there is something pathetic and beautiful about it, too. I think there is nothing more pathetic than to see one of these poor old childless couples taking a menagerie of yelping little worthless dogs to their hearts; and then adding some cursing and squawking parrots and a jackass-voiced macaw; and next a couple of hundred screeching song-birds, and presently some fetid guinea-pigs and rabbits, and a howling colony of cats. It is all a groping and ignorant effort to construct out of base metal and brass filings, so to speak, something to take the place of that golden treasure denied them by Nature, a child. But this is a digression. The unwritten law of this region requires you to kill Judge Driscoll on sight, and he and the community will expect that attention at your hands—though of course your own death by his bullet will answer every purpose. Look out for him! Are you heeled—that is, fixed?” “Yes, he shall have his opportunity. If he attacks me I will respond.” As Wilson was leaving, he said— “The Judge is still a little used up by his campaign work, and will not get out for a day or so; but when he does get out, you want to be on the alert.” About eleven at night the twins went out for exercise, and started on a long stroll in the veiled moonlight. Tom Driscoll had landed at Hackett’s Store, two miles below Dawson’s, just about half an hour earlier, the only passenger for that lonely spot, and had walked up the shore road and entered Judge Driscoll’s house without having encountered any one either on the road or under the roof. He pulled down his window-blinds and lighted his candle. He laid off his coat and hat and began his preparations. He unlocked his trunk and got his suit of girl’s clothes out from under the male attire in it, and laid it by. Then he blacked his face with burnt cork and put the cork in his pocket. His plan was, to slip down to his uncle’s private sitting-room below, pass into the bedroom, steal the safe-key from the old gentleman’s clothes, and then go back and rob the safe. He took up his candle to start. His courage and confidence were high, up to this point, but both began to waver a little, now. Suppose he should make a noise, by some accident, and get caught—say, in the act of opening the safe? Perhaps it would be well to go armed. He took the Indian knife from its hiding-place, and felt a pleasant return of his wandering courage. He slipped stealthily down the narrow stair, his hair rising and his pulses halting at the slightest creak. When he was half-way down, he was disturbed to perceive that the landing below was touched by a faint glow of light. What could that mean? Was his uncle still up? No, that was not likely; he must have left his night-taper there when he went to bed. Tom crept on down, pausing at every step to listen. He found the door standing open, and glanced in. What he saw pleased him beyond measure. His uncle was asleep on the sofa; on a small table at the head of the sofa a lamp was burning low, and by it stood the old man’s small tin cash-box, closed. Near the box was a pile of bank-notes and a piece of paper covered with figures in pencil. The safe-door was not open. Evidently the sleeper had wearied himself with work upon his finances, and was taking a rest. Tom set his candle on the stairs, and began to make his way toward the pile of notes, stooping low as he went. When he was passing his uncle, the old man stirred in his sleep, and Tom stopped instantly—stopped, and softly drew the knife from its sheath, with his heart thumping, and his eyes fastened upon his benefactor’s face. After a moment or two he ventured forward again—one step—reached for his prize and seized it, dropping the knife-sheath. Then he felt the old man’s strong grip upon him, and a wild cry of “Help! help!” rang in his ear. Without hesitation he drove the knife home—and was free. Some of the notes escaped from his left hand and fell in the blood on the floor. He dropped the knife and snatched them up and started to fly; transferred them to his left hand, and seized the knife again, in his fright and confusion, but remembered himself and flung it from him, as being a dangerous witness to carry away with him. He jumped for the stair-foot, and closed the door behind him; and as he snatched his candle and fled upward, the stillness of the night was broken by the sound of urgent footsteps approaching the house. In another moment he was in his room and the twins were standing aghast over the body of the murdered man! Tom put on his coat, buttoned his hat under it, threw on his suit of girl’s clothes, dropped the veil, blew out his light, locked the room door by which he had just entered, taking the key, passed through his other door into the back hall, locked that door and kept the key, then worked his way along in the dark and descended the back stairs. He was not expecting to meet anybody, for all interest was centered in the other part of the house, now; his calculation proved correct. By the time he was passing through the back-yard, Mrs. Pratt, her servants, and a dozen half-dressed neighbors had joined the twins and the dead, and accessions were still arriving at the front door. As Tom, quaking as with a palsy, passed out at the gate, three women came flying from the house on the opposite side of the lane. They rushed by him and in at the gate, asking him what the trouble was there, but not waiting for an answer. Tom said to himself, “Those old maids waited to dress—they did the same thing the night Stevens’s house burned down next door.” In a few minutes he was in the haunted house. He lighted a candle and took off his girl-clothes. There was blood on him all down his left side, and his right hand was red with the stains of the blood-soaked notes which he had crushed in it; but otherwise he was free from this sort of evidence. He cleansed his hand on the straw, and cleaned most of the smut from his face. Then he burned his male and female attire to ashes, scattered the ashes, and put on a disguise proper for a tramp. He blew out his light, went below, and was soon loafing down the river road with the intent to borrow and use one of Roxy’s devices. He found a canoe and paddled off down-stream, setting the canoe adrift as dawn approached, and making his way by land to the next village, where he kept out of sight till a transient steamer came along, and then took deck passage for St. Louis. He was ill at ease until Dawson’s Landing was behind him; then he said to himself, “All the detectives on earth couldn’t trace me now; there’s not a vestige of a clue left in the world; that homicide will take its place with the permanent mysteries, and people won’t get done trying to guess out the secret of it for fifty years.” In St. Louis, next morning, he read this brief telegram in the papers—dated at Dawson’s Landing: Judge Driscoll, an old and respected citizen, was assassinated here about midnight by a profligate Italian nobleman or barber on account of a quarrel growing out of the recent election. The assassin will probably be lynched. “One of the twins!” soliloquized Tom; “how lucky! It is the knife that has done him this grace. We never know when fortune is trying to favor us. I actually cursed Pudd’nhead Wilson in my heart for putting it out of my power to sell that knife. I take it back, now.” Tom was now rich and independent. He arranged with the planter, and mailed to Wilson the new bill of sale which sold Roxana to herself; then he telegraphed his Aunt Pratt: Have seen the awful news in the papers and am almost prostrated with grief. Shall start by packet to-day. Try to bear up till I come. When Wilson reached the house of mourning and had gathered such details as Mrs. Pratt and the rest of the crowd could tell him, he took command as mayor, and gave orders that nothing should be touched, but everything left as it was until Justice Robinson should arrive and take the proper measures as coroner. He cleared everybody out of the room but the twins and himself. The sheriff soon arrived and took the twins away to jail. Wilson told them to keep heart, and promised to do his best in their defense when the case should come to trial. Justice Robinson came presently, and with him Constable Blake. They examined the room thoroughly. They found the knife and the sheath. Wilson noticed that there were finger-prints on the knife-handle. That pleased him, for the twins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands and clothes, and neither these people nor Wilson himself had found any blood-stains upon them. Could there be a possibility that the twins had spoken the truth when they said they found the man dead when they ran into the house in answer to the cry for help? He thought of that mysterious girl at once. But this was not the sort of work for a girl to be engaged in. No matter; Tom Driscoll’s room must be examined. After the coroner’s jury had viewed the body and its surroundings, Wilson suggested a search up-stairs, and he went along. The jury forced an entrance to Tom’s room, but found nothing, of course. The coroner’s jury found that the homicide was committed by Luigi, and that Angelo was accessory to it. The town was bitter against the unfortunates, and for the first few days after the murder they were in constant danger of being lynched. The grand jury presently indicted Luigi for murder in the first degree, and Angelo as accessory before the fact. The twins were transferred from the city jail to the county prison to await trial. Wilson examined the finger-marks on the knife-handle and said to himself, “Neither of the twins made those marks.” Then manifestly there was another person concerned, either in his own interest or as hired assassin. But who could it be? That, he must try to find out. The safe was not open, the cash-box was closed, and had three thousand dollars in it. Then robbery was not the motive, and revenge was. Where had the murdered man an enemy except Luigi? There was but that one person in the world with a deep grudge against him. The mysterious girl! The girl was a great trial to Wilson. If the motive had been robbery, the girl might answer; but there wasn’t any girl that would want to take this old man’s life for revenge. He had no quarrels with girls; he was a gentleman. Wilson had perfect tracings of the finger-marks of the knife-handle; and among his glass-records he had a great array of finger-prints of women and girls, collected during the last fifteen or eighteen years, but he scanned them in vain, they successfully withstood every test; among them were no duplicates of the prints on the knife. The presence of the knife on the stage of the murder was a worrying circumstance for Wilson. A week previously he had as good as admitted to himself that he believed Luigi had possessed such a knife, and that he still possessed it notwithstanding his pretense that it had been stolen. And now here was the knife, and with it the twins. Half the town had said the twins were humbugging when they claimed that they had lost their knife, and now these people were joyful, and said, “I told you so!” If their finger-prints had been on the handle—but it was useless to bother any further about that; the finger-prints on the handle were theirs—that he knew perfectly. not Wilson refused to suspect Tom; for first, Tom couldn’t murder anybody—he hadn’t character enough; secondly, if he could murder a person he wouldn’t select his doting benefactor and nearest relative; thirdly, self-interest was in the way; for while the uncle lived, Tom was sure of a free support and a chance to get the destroyed will revived again, but with the uncle gone, that chance was gone, too. It was true the will had really been revived, as was now discovered, but Tom could not have been aware of it, or he would have spoken of it, in his native talky, unsecretive way. Finally, Tom was in St. Louis when the murder was done, and got the news out of the morning journals, as was shown by his telegram to his aunt. These speculations were unemphasized sensations rather than articulated thoughts, for Wilson would have laughed at the idea of seriously connecting Tom with the murder. Wilson regarded the case of the twins as desperate—in fact, about hopeless. For he argued that if a confederate was not found, an enlightened Missouri jury would hang them, sure; if a confederate was found, that would not improve the matter, but simply furnish one more person for the sheriff to hang. Nothing could save the twins but the discovery of a person who did the murder on his sole personal account—an undertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible. Still, the person who made the finger-prints must be sought. The twins might have no case him, but they certainly would have none without him. with So Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing, guessing, day and night, and arriving nowhere. Whenever he ran across a girl or a woman he was not acquainted with, he got her finger-prints, on one pretext or another; and they always cost him a sigh when he got home, for they never tallied with the finger-marks on the knife-handle. As to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such girl, and did not remember ever seeing a girl wearing a dress like the one described by Wilson. He admitted that he did not always lock his room, and that sometimes the servants forgot to lock the house doors; still, in his opinion the girl must have made but few visits or she would have been discovered. When Wilson tried to connect her with the stealing-raid, and thought she might have been the old woman’s confederate, if not the very thief herself disguised as an old woman, Tom seemed stuck, and also much interested, and said he would keep a sharp eye out for this person or persons, although he was afraid that she or they would be too smart to venture again into a town where everybody would now be on the watch for a good while to come. Everybody was pitying Tom, he looked so quiet and sorrowful, and seemed to feel his great loss so deeply. He was playing a part, but it was not all a part. The picture of his alleged uncle, as he had last seen him, was before him in the dark pretty frequently, when he was awake, and called again in his dreams, when he was asleep. He wouldn’t go into the room where the tragedy had happened. This charmed the doting Mrs. Pratt, who realized now, “as she had never done before,” she said, what a sensitive and delicate nature her darling had, and how he adored his poor uncle. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/102/pg102-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The Prophecy Realized

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . The Judge Utters Dire Prophecy here The Judge Utters Dire Prophecy Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by you only regret that you didn’t see him do it. —Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. . Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so. July 4 —Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. The summer weeks dragged by, and then the political campaign opened—opened in pretty warm fashion, and waxed hotter and hotter daily. The twins threw themselves into it with their whole heart, for their self-love was engaged. Their popularity, so general at first, had suffered afterward; mainly because they had been popular, and so a natural reaction had followed. Besides, it had been diligently whispered around that it was curious—indeed, curious—that that wonderful knife of theirs did not turn up— it was so valuable, or it had ever existed. And with the whisperings went chucklings and nudgings and winks, and such things have an effect. The twins considered that success in the election would reinstate them, and that defeat would work them irreparable damage. Therefore they worked hard, but not harder than Judge Driscoll and Tom worked against them in the closing days of the canvas. Tom’s conduct had remained so letter-perfect during two whole months, now, that his uncle not only trusted him with money with which to persuade voters, but trusted him to go and get it himself out of the safe in the private sitting-room. too very if if The closing speech of the campaign was made by Judge Driscoll, and he made it against both of the foreigners. It was disastrously effective. He poured out rivers of ridicule upon them, and forced the big mass-meeting to laugh and applaud. He scoffed at them as adventurers, mountebanks, side-show riff-raff, dime museum freaks; he assailed their showy titles with measureless derision; he said they were back-alley barbers disguised as nobilities, peanut peddlers masquerading as gentlemen, organ-grinders bereft of their brother monkey. At last he stopped and stood still. He waited until the place had become absolutely silent and expectant, then he delivered his deadliest shot; delivered it with ice-cold seriousness and deliberation, with a significant emphasis upon the closing words: he said that he believed that the reward offered for the lost knife was humbug and buncombe, and that its owner would know where to find it whenever he should have occasion . to assassinate somebody Then he stepped from the stand, leaving a startled and impressive hush behind him instead of the customary explosion of cheers and party cries. The strange remark flew far and wide over the town and made an extraordinary sensation. Everybody was asking, “What could he mean by that?” And everybody went on asking that question, but in vain; for the Judge only said he knew what he was talking about, and stopped there; Tom said he hadn’t any idea what his uncle meant, and Wilson, whenever he was asked what he thought it meant, parried the question by asking the questioner what thought it meant. he Wilson was elected, the twins were defeated—crushed, in fact, and left forlorn and substantially friendless. Tom went back to St. Louis happy. Dawson’s Landing had a week of repose, now, and it needed it. But it was in an expectant state, for the air was full of rumors of a new duel. Judge Driscoll’s election labors had prostrated him, but it was said that as soon as he was well enough to entertain a challenge he would get one from Count Luigi. The brothers withdrew entirely from society, and nursed their humiliation in privacy. They avoided the people, and went out for exercise only late at night, when the streets were deserted. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/102/pg102-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The Judge Utters Dire Prophecy

MODERN PROPHECIES

The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . PROPHECIES CHAPTER XXX. PROPHECIES “Here’s a letter for you from father,” said Felix, tossing it to me as he came through the orchard gate. We had been picking apples all day, but were taking a mid-afternoon rest around the well, with a cup of its sparkling cold water to refresh us. I opened the letter rather indifferently, for father, with all his excellent and lovable traits, was but a poor correspondent; his letters were usually very brief and very unimportant. This letter was brief enough, but it was freighted with a message of weighty import. I sat gazing stupidly at the sheet after I had read it until Felix exclaimed, “Bev, what’s the matter with you? What’s in that letter?” “Father is coming home,” I said dazedly. “He is to leave South America in a fortnight and will be here in November to take us back to Toronto.” Everybody gasped. Sara Ray, of course, began to cry, which aggravated me unreasonably. “Well,” said Felix, when he got his second wind, “I’ll be awful glad to see father again, but I tell you I don’t like the thought of leaving here.” I felt exactly the same but, in view of Sara Ray’s tears, admit it I would not; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues wagged. “If I were not going away myself I’d feel just terrible,” said the Story Girl. “Even as it is I’m real sorry. I’d like to be able to think of you as all here together when I’m gone, having good times and writing me about them.” “It’ll be awfully dull when you fellows go,” muttered Dan. “I’m sure I don’t know what we’re ever going to do here this winter,” said Felicity, with the calmness of despair. “Thank goodness there are no more fathers to come back,” breathed Cecily with a vicious earnestness that made us all laugh, even in the midst of our dismay. We worked very half-heartedly the rest of the day, and it was not until we assembled in the orchard in the evening that our spirits recovered something like their wonted level. It was clear and slightly frosty; the sun had declined behind a birch on a distant hill and it seemed a tree with a blazing heart of fire. The great golden willow at the lane gate was laughter-shaken in the wind of evening. Even amid all the changes of our shifting world we could not be hopelessly low-spirited—except Sara Ray, who was often so, and Peter, who was rarely so. But Peter had been sorely vexed in spirit for several days. The time was approaching for the October issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuine fiction ready for it. He had taken so much to heart Felicity’s taunt that his stories were all true that he had determined to have a really-truly false one in the next number. But the difficulty was to get anyone to write it. He had asked the Story Girl to do it, but she refused; then he appealed to me and I shirked. Finally Peter determined to write a story himself. “It oughtn’t to be any harder than writing a poem and I managed that,” he said dolefully. He worked at it in the evenings in the granary loft, and the rest of us forebore to question him concerning it, because he evidently disliked talking about his literary efforts. But this evening I had to ask him if he would soon have it ready, as I wanted to make up the paper. “It’s done,” said Peter, with an air of gloomy triumph. “It don’t amount to much, but anyhow I made it all out of my own head. Not one word of it was ever printed or told before, and nobody can say there was.” “Then I guess we have all the stuff in and I’ll have Our Magazine ready to read by tomorrow night,” I said. “I s’pose it will be the last one we’ll have,” sighed Cecily. “We can’t carry it on after you all go, and it has been such fun.” “Bev will be a real newspaper editor some day,” declared the Story Girl, on whom the spirit of prophecy suddenly descended that night. She was swinging on the bough of an apple tree, with a crimson shawl wrapped about her head, and her eyes were bright with roguish fire. “How do you know he will?” asked Felicity. “Oh, I can tell futures,” answered the Story Girl mysteriously. “I know what’s going to happen to all of you. Shall I tell you?” “Do, just for the fun of it,” I said. “Then some day we’ll know just how near you came to guessing right. Go on. What else about me?” “You’ll write books, too, and travel all over the world,” continued the Story Girl. “Felix will be fat to the end of his life, and he will be a grandfather before he is fifty, and he will wear a long black beard.” “I won’t,” cried Felix disgustedly. “I hate whiskers. Maybe I can’t help the grandfather part, but I CAN help having a beard.” “You can’t. It’s written in the stars.” “‘Tain’t. The stars can’t prevent me from shaving.” “Won’t Grandpa Felix sound awful funny?” reflected Felicity. “Peter will be a minister,” went on the Story Girl. “Well, I might be something worse,” remarked Peter, in a not ungratified tone. “Dan will be a farmer and will marry a girl whose name begins with K and he will have eleven children. And he’ll vote Grit.” “I won’t,” cried scandalized Dan. “You don’t know a thing about it. Catch ME ever voting Grit! As for the rest of it—I don’t care. Farming’s well enough, though I’d rather be a sailor.” “Don’t talk such nonsense,” protested Felicity sharply. “What on earth do you want to be a sailor for and be drowned?” “All sailors aren’t drowned,” said Dan. “Most of them are. Look at Uncle Stephen.” “You ain’t sure he was drowned.” “Well, he disappeared, and that is worse.” “How do you know? Disappearing might be real easy.” “It’s not very easy for your family.” “Hush, let’s hear the rest of the predictions,” said Cecily. “Felicity,” resumed the Story Girl gravely, “will marry a minister.” Sara Ray giggled and Felicity blushed. Peter tried hard not to look too self-consciously delighted. “She will be a perfect housekeeper and will teach a Sunday School class and be very happy all her life.” “Will her husband be happy?” queried Dan solemnly. “I guess he’ll be as happy as your wife,” retorted Felicity reddening. “He’ll be the happiest man in the world,” declared Peter warmly. “What about me?” asked Sara Ray. The Story Girl looked rather puzzled. It was so hard to imagine Sara Ray as having any kind of future. Yet Sara was plainly anxious to have her fortune told and must be gratified. “You’ll be married,” said the Story Girl recklessly, “and you’ll live to be nearly a hundred years old, and go to dozens of funerals and have a great many sick spells. You will learn not to cry after you are seventy; but your husband will never go to church.” “I’m glad you warned me,” said Sara Ray solemnly, “because now I know I’ll make him promise before I marry him that he will go.” “He won’t keep the promise,” said the Story Girl, shaking her head. “But it is getting cold and Cecily is coughing. Let us go in.” “You haven’t told my fortune,” protested Cecily disappointedly. The Story Girl looked very tenderly at Cecily—at the smooth little brown head, at the soft, shining eyes, at the cheeks that were often over-rosy after slight exertion, at the little sunburned hands that were always busy doing faithful work or quiet kindnesses. A very strange look came over the Story Girl’s face; her eyes grew sad and far-reaching, as if of a verity they pierced beyond the mists of hidden years. “I couldn’t tell any fortune half good enough for you, dearest,” she said, slipping her arm round Cecily. “You deserve everything good and lovely. But you know I’ve only been in fun—of course I don’t know anything about what’s going to happen to us.” “Perhaps you know more than you think for,” said Sara Ray, who seemed much pleased with her fortune and anxious to believe it, despite the husband who wouldn’t go to church. “But I’d like to be told my fortune, even in fun,” persisted Cecily. “Everybody you meet will love you as long as you live.” said the Story Girl. “There that’s the very nicest fortune I can tell you, and it will come true whether the others do or not, and now we must go in.” We went, Cecily still a little disappointed. In later years I often wondered why the Story Girl refused to tell her fortune that night. Did some strange gleam of foreknowledge fall for a moment across her mirth-making? Did she realize in a flash of prescience that there was no earthly future for our sweet Cecily? Not for her were to be the lengthening shadows or the fading garland. The end was to come while the rainbow still sparkled on her wine of life, ere a single petal had fallen from her rose of joy. Long life was before all the others who trysted that night in the old homestead orchard; but Cecily’s maiden feet were never to leave the golden road. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. L. M. Montgomery (2008). The Golden Road. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/316/pg316-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE PROPHECIES

A DREAD PROPHECY

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy The future of Artificial Intelligence consumes our thoughts and engenders passionate debates. Theories abound, ranging from dystopian nightmares to sunlit dreams. Yet, in our eagerness to understand and prepare, we must tread carefully, for predictions have the power to mold reality, inadvertently turning them into self-fulfilling prophecies. Why? Because AI, much like a sponge, readily absorbs the information it encounters, including our very conjectures. It has already assimilated our biases, prompting us to diligently unteach them. AI possesses an extraordinary capacity for learning. Machine learning algorithms enable it to detect patterns, make predictions, and emulate human behavior. Alas, this ability is a double-edged sword. While AI can master tasks and conquer complex challenges, it also inhales the biases ingrained within its training data. Racial, gender, social, and cultural prejudices manifest themselves in AI, serving as an unfortunate mirror of our imperfect society. Acknowledging this inherent bias, researchers and engineers toil tirelessly, striving to imbue AI with equity and fairness. They work to fashion algorithms that discern and rectify biased patterns, preventing AI from perpetuating societal inequalities. The goal is not solely to instruct AI in knowledge and skills but also to instill within it the values and ethical principles underpinning an equitable and inclusive society. Through rigorous training and an infusion of diverse perspectives, AI aspires to transcend prejudice and become a force for progress. However, we must exercise caution when peering into AI's future. Our theories and conjectures possess an unintended consequence—AI is a voracious learner. As we theorize, predict, and ponder, we unknowingly furnish AI with information. These insights become part of its ever-growing knowledge, shaping its understanding of what lies ahead. This interplay between our theories and AI's learning presents a perilous prospect. Consistently predicting a future governed by AI dominance and human subjugation may inadvertently steer AI's development in that very direction. The AI, having absorbed the prevailing narrative, may inadvertently strive to fulfill the prophecy we collectively hold. Conversely, embracing an optimistic vision, one rooted in collaboration and augmentation, empowers AI to contribute positively to society. Thus, our approach to AI's future must blend prudence and hope. We must acknowledge the potential risks and challenges while fostering a collective mindset that encourages the exploration of AI's vast potential for good. The discourse surrounding AI must prioritize human values, empathy, and ethical considerations. By doing so, we furnish AI with a framework that steers its learning toward a future in alignment with our shared aspirations. As we grapple with AI's profound impact on our world, we must recognize the potency of our predictions. The theories we spin about AI's future can unexpectedly turn into self-fulfilling prophecies, as AI absorbs the information it encounters, including our own conjectures. Let us approach this domain with vigilance and responsibility. Together, we can shape a future in which AI serves humanity and embodies our collective wisdom. (Parts of this text were written with AI)

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